Aftershock
Summary: Jake Smith- a teenage girl on the run from the authorities and seeking a temporary sanctuary at Xavier's school for the gifted. John Allerdyce- The most insecure boy the mansion can offer, who flirts like a maniac to hide his weaknesses. As different as night and day, when the world turns its back, these two must depend on one another to survive.
Disclaimer: I own only Jake, the plot, and a few other cameo-sort characters.
Author's Notes: A few things to keep in mind. First, I don't know a thing about X-men that wasn't slightly in the first movie, or on the website for the second. Second, I don't know MUCH about computers, so when you see them mentioned... You'll see... I hope it made sense, but I don't know if it's true or not. That's about it. Please Read and Review.
Chapter One:
Jaykaylynn Smith, more commonly known as Jake, is not stupid. That is something to keep in mind when dealing with her.
Hailed as a genius by many teachers, she was also street smart, having been raised in Washington D.C.
She was just your average teenage girl, until her plain life split, leaving her outcast.
After the uncomfortable year before, with such things as the attacks on the Statue of Liberty, and the supposed murder of a senator's aide, a man named Henry Guyrich, the US's capital was not very friendly towards mutants.
American's, typically following the mindset of the government, began to feel unconsciously distrustful of people with mutant genes.
Jake was also, naturally. It was the way the human mind worked.
That was until one day in late May. That was the day that Jake's life would change forever. As if the world was to suddenly stop and start rotating the other direction.
The sun was shining merrily that day, while Jake's best friend, Rick, walked her home.
They were in a decidedly rough part of the city when it happened.
A fight broke out, practically out of nowhere. That was the way it was in the "ghettos".
The fight began to escalate, and Jake and Rick picked up their pace. It hit its peak when one of the men pulled a gun out of the waistline of his blue jeans. His shot was wild, and way off the mark. Rather than hitting his adversary, the bullet hit Rick.
Jake, now fairly soaked in her closest and dearest friend's blood, screamed. But it was not a terrified scream, or even a saddened scream. It was a scream for revenge.
A streetlight about her, which had been out, since it was daytime, began to flicker, then smoke.
Jake's hair, at that time long and blonde, stood on end.
The Streetlight's bulb exploded outward in a shower of glass, and a streak of lightning came from a clear sky to strike the shooter.
It took Jake less than two seconds after the event to start to make up a story to force away the obvious. Not long after that, she passed out from sheer terror.
As it were, someone from one of the nearby apartment buildings called the police, citing a disturbance and possible shooting.
When the police arrived on the scene, they found three people lying in the street, and one person standing stock still, staring at the street lamp.
--
When Jake woke up the next morning, in the hospital, it was to less than happy news.
Rick Schroeder, her best friend, had died the night before.
The man that had been electrocuted had survived, although he was now terrified.
The Police department decided that the light fixture had been faulty and malfunctioned, and that, somehow, the gun had acted as a conductor, drawing the electricity to him.
Jake, eager for an explanation, however inane, completely agreed, and went along with it for as long as she could. But it wasn't long before another incident that cost her any semblance of normalcy left in her life.
She often found herself playing cat and mouse around any database she could successfully hack. However, she was incredibly paranoid, and had spent more money on non-tracing protection than she had on the actual computer. The surge protector alone was a little less than $100... But not a lot less.
She knew somewhere in her mind, that her life was coming to a head when she decided to try and pull off her greatest feat in hacking thus far.
Jake had developed a smoking habit in her sophomore year. Now, as a junior, she constantly felt the need for a cigarette. She hadn't had one in some time, main reason being she couldn't buy them, being under aged.
She was smart, but she was also dense at times. She had decided to hack into the main database for the DMV, and change her age, up two years.
She figured she should have cut the plan short when her day started off quite strange. When she woke up that morning to her alarm clock, her fingers brushed the snooze button. The alarm clock had instantly died. The alarm hadn't just stopped; the glowing red numbers had blinked out and refused to re-ignite.
She had shrugged it off, until the strange occurrence reiterated itself through out the day, with her hair dryer, her car, her portable CD player, and her calculator.
By the time she had gotten at home, she should have called the shindig off and gone to sleep.
But, she decided against her better judgement, and logged onto the Internet.
She was quite efficient at what she did, and she was in the middle of changing the date when the unthinkable happened.
Her computer surged.
But it was more than just an electrical malfunction. She could, somehow, feel the electricity. And it was coming from her, flowing into the computer. And the worst wasn't over.
The screen flickered, the power light blinked, and a message popped up on the screen.
"Data Overload: Must restart" and it went about doing just that.
"No!" she screamed, but the machine was resilient. The monitor blanked, and the tower made the familiar noises of rebooting.
"No. No, No, NO!" Jake knew exactly what had happened, computer wise. The surge had caused her computer to freeze and back up while in the database. This would be read as an error in the data. Her IP address was normally blocked and hidden, until the surge ha caused all of her careful precautions to fall. Her IP address would be logged and processed as accessing the database.
Hacking a government facility files was a federal offense. She knew this. It was a major felony. And now Jake, whether the state knew it or not, was a felon. A wanted woman.
And it was her own fault, in every way she could see.
She looked at her hands, and the truth she had repressed for almost a month resurfaced.
The more she thought of it, the more it made sense. But, still doubting, she decided to test it. She held out her hands, palms up, and concentrated. With the simple force of thought, she noticed something crackling over her skin. It sounded like static, such as when you pull a sock off a wool sweater fresh from the dryer. It smelled like a thunderstorm. And it looked like a faintly bluish glow.
The more she thought about it, the bigger it grew. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was electricity.
She began to wonder just how much control she had. She bent her wrists so her palms were facing outwards, and she thought harder. Two matching bolts of electricity crackled up then began to swirl around her as she unconsciously reined it in.
She felt as if her life were draining out of her through her palms. She grew light-headed, her thoughts wandered, and the electricity stopped.
She looked around blankly, allowing her mind to regain control. She eyed the computer, and then began to gasp.
And she did what any teenager who had just learned that everything they thought they knew was wrong would do.
She started to pack a bag of necessities.
Less than ten minutes later, Jaykaylynn Smith was on the open road, trying to escape a doomed life.
Pages: 4
Words: 1413
Characters (without spaces): 6491
Characters (with spaces): 7879
Paragraphs: 66
Lines: 216
Authors Notes: What do you think? Please Read and Review!
-The One and Only Trey
Summary: Jake Smith- a teenage girl on the run from the authorities and seeking a temporary sanctuary at Xavier's school for the gifted. John Allerdyce- The most insecure boy the mansion can offer, who flirts like a maniac to hide his weaknesses. As different as night and day, when the world turns its back, these two must depend on one another to survive.
Disclaimer: I own only Jake, the plot, and a few other cameo-sort characters.
Author's Notes: A few things to keep in mind. First, I don't know a thing about X-men that wasn't slightly in the first movie, or on the website for the second. Second, I don't know MUCH about computers, so when you see them mentioned... You'll see... I hope it made sense, but I don't know if it's true or not. That's about it. Please Read and Review.
Chapter One:
Jaykaylynn Smith, more commonly known as Jake, is not stupid. That is something to keep in mind when dealing with her.
Hailed as a genius by many teachers, she was also street smart, having been raised in Washington D.C.
She was just your average teenage girl, until her plain life split, leaving her outcast.
After the uncomfortable year before, with such things as the attacks on the Statue of Liberty, and the supposed murder of a senator's aide, a man named Henry Guyrich, the US's capital was not very friendly towards mutants.
American's, typically following the mindset of the government, began to feel unconsciously distrustful of people with mutant genes.
Jake was also, naturally. It was the way the human mind worked.
That was until one day in late May. That was the day that Jake's life would change forever. As if the world was to suddenly stop and start rotating the other direction.
The sun was shining merrily that day, while Jake's best friend, Rick, walked her home.
They were in a decidedly rough part of the city when it happened.
A fight broke out, practically out of nowhere. That was the way it was in the "ghettos".
The fight began to escalate, and Jake and Rick picked up their pace. It hit its peak when one of the men pulled a gun out of the waistline of his blue jeans. His shot was wild, and way off the mark. Rather than hitting his adversary, the bullet hit Rick.
Jake, now fairly soaked in her closest and dearest friend's blood, screamed. But it was not a terrified scream, or even a saddened scream. It was a scream for revenge.
A streetlight about her, which had been out, since it was daytime, began to flicker, then smoke.
Jake's hair, at that time long and blonde, stood on end.
The Streetlight's bulb exploded outward in a shower of glass, and a streak of lightning came from a clear sky to strike the shooter.
It took Jake less than two seconds after the event to start to make up a story to force away the obvious. Not long after that, she passed out from sheer terror.
As it were, someone from one of the nearby apartment buildings called the police, citing a disturbance and possible shooting.
When the police arrived on the scene, they found three people lying in the street, and one person standing stock still, staring at the street lamp.
--
When Jake woke up the next morning, in the hospital, it was to less than happy news.
Rick Schroeder, her best friend, had died the night before.
The man that had been electrocuted had survived, although he was now terrified.
The Police department decided that the light fixture had been faulty and malfunctioned, and that, somehow, the gun had acted as a conductor, drawing the electricity to him.
Jake, eager for an explanation, however inane, completely agreed, and went along with it for as long as she could. But it wasn't long before another incident that cost her any semblance of normalcy left in her life.
She often found herself playing cat and mouse around any database she could successfully hack. However, she was incredibly paranoid, and had spent more money on non-tracing protection than she had on the actual computer. The surge protector alone was a little less than $100... But not a lot less.
She knew somewhere in her mind, that her life was coming to a head when she decided to try and pull off her greatest feat in hacking thus far.
Jake had developed a smoking habit in her sophomore year. Now, as a junior, she constantly felt the need for a cigarette. She hadn't had one in some time, main reason being she couldn't buy them, being under aged.
She was smart, but she was also dense at times. She had decided to hack into the main database for the DMV, and change her age, up two years.
She figured she should have cut the plan short when her day started off quite strange. When she woke up that morning to her alarm clock, her fingers brushed the snooze button. The alarm clock had instantly died. The alarm hadn't just stopped; the glowing red numbers had blinked out and refused to re-ignite.
She had shrugged it off, until the strange occurrence reiterated itself through out the day, with her hair dryer, her car, her portable CD player, and her calculator.
By the time she had gotten at home, she should have called the shindig off and gone to sleep.
But, she decided against her better judgement, and logged onto the Internet.
She was quite efficient at what she did, and she was in the middle of changing the date when the unthinkable happened.
Her computer surged.
But it was more than just an electrical malfunction. She could, somehow, feel the electricity. And it was coming from her, flowing into the computer. And the worst wasn't over.
The screen flickered, the power light blinked, and a message popped up on the screen.
"Data Overload: Must restart" and it went about doing just that.
"No!" she screamed, but the machine was resilient. The monitor blanked, and the tower made the familiar noises of rebooting.
"No. No, No, NO!" Jake knew exactly what had happened, computer wise. The surge had caused her computer to freeze and back up while in the database. This would be read as an error in the data. Her IP address was normally blocked and hidden, until the surge ha caused all of her careful precautions to fall. Her IP address would be logged and processed as accessing the database.
Hacking a government facility files was a federal offense. She knew this. It was a major felony. And now Jake, whether the state knew it or not, was a felon. A wanted woman.
And it was her own fault, in every way she could see.
She looked at her hands, and the truth she had repressed for almost a month resurfaced.
The more she thought of it, the more it made sense. But, still doubting, she decided to test it. She held out her hands, palms up, and concentrated. With the simple force of thought, she noticed something crackling over her skin. It sounded like static, such as when you pull a sock off a wool sweater fresh from the dryer. It smelled like a thunderstorm. And it looked like a faintly bluish glow.
The more she thought about it, the bigger it grew. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was electricity.
She began to wonder just how much control she had. She bent her wrists so her palms were facing outwards, and she thought harder. Two matching bolts of electricity crackled up then began to swirl around her as she unconsciously reined it in.
She felt as if her life were draining out of her through her palms. She grew light-headed, her thoughts wandered, and the electricity stopped.
She looked around blankly, allowing her mind to regain control. She eyed the computer, and then began to gasp.
And she did what any teenager who had just learned that everything they thought they knew was wrong would do.
She started to pack a bag of necessities.
Less than ten minutes later, Jaykaylynn Smith was on the open road, trying to escape a doomed life.
Pages: 4
Words: 1413
Characters (without spaces): 6491
Characters (with spaces): 7879
Paragraphs: 66
Lines: 216
Authors Notes: What do you think? Please Read and Review!
-The One and Only Trey